Monday, November 20, 2017

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In my soul, I am a hat person. I wear them effortlessly and often. They never "wear me". In real life, well, I'm a little embarrassed whenever I wear them. I don't know why really. I actually live in a place where keeping your head covered is perfectly acceptable and sometimes necessary for a large portion of the year. But for whatever reason, anything beyond a beanie is a real statement. That being said, I've always, always loved the look of a good baker boy cap. Every time I see someone wear one, I love it. So whatever, I picked one up.

And immediately James was like, 'Well that's different'. So that didn't help.

In the end I just had to wear it out and be uncomfortable for a little while and then realize that I love it more than I'm embarrassed by it. It might not be everyone's cup of tea if you live in a place like I do (it's funny, in LA I wore so many stupid hats and didn't care one bit). Your husband might think it's ridiculous. But you do you.

Monday, October 30, 2017

When I was pregnant last fall, we moved up north around the beginning of my second trimester. It was just about the time I was beginning to ‘show’, so a lot of my clothing I packed away and sent to my parents’ attic since I knew I wouldn’t be needing it for a long time. However, I was lucky and able to get a little more wear out of some of my clothes for a bit longer, including most of my favorite jeans (bless those little hair elastics and long cami tanks, they did their best for so long). Sadly, that didn’t last forever and I finally had to pack up the rest of my jeans and some other things that I knew I just wouldn’t fit into/care about for awhile a couple months after we moved.

Flash forward to the end of this summer. I can fit back into my old clothing and we’re beginning to pack for yet another move. In doing so, I’m also going through all the pre-pregnancy clothes I had yet to unpack and bursting with glee that I can now wear things that aren’t a couple of grubby tees and some now-baggy jeans I bought to get myself through the spring. Clearly I don’t quite grasp the concept of packing as things have a way of unpacking themselves when I do it. I’ll say it a thousand times -- James is a lucky man.

ANYWAY, I cannot for the life of me find that final box of clothing I packed. The one with all my favorite jeans! I lament about this quite a lot to almost anyone who will listen. I search my parents’ attic, I search James’ parents’ attic. I cannot find that damn box. My mother asks if I’ve looked here, because this box seems to have your clothing in it. Yes, mother, those are my clothes, however they are not the clothes. Well, what about this box, aren’t those jeans? Uhh yes, mother, those are jeans, just not the jeans. Insert embarrassed grinning emoji face.

I’ll cut to it, for about 2 months it becomes a personal saga. Every time I unpack a box at the new place or visit one of our parents’ houses, my coworkers/parents/strangers ask if I found them. I never do. I’m quite ornery about it and complain loudly. It’s quite an injustice that of all the boxes to go missing in action, my beloved jeans would be in the one that does. Yes, those other jeans are perfectly fine, but they’re the, like, tighter ones. You know? The jeans you have for those elusive skinny days, but 95% of the time they’re just uncomfortable and why are you even keeping them-type of jeans. I want the good jeans!

Everyone, save for me, is tired of this until two heroes emerge within a couple days of each other: my mother and James, naturally. First, James asks if I’ve looked in my parents’ basement in a certain location. Secondly, my mother is looking for something else in that exact location and BAM! The box is found! Salvation! And oh it’s so good. Not only were my jeans in there, but a bunch of other tops and skirts that I had kind of assumed I’d donated in a pregnancy-fueled purge and then just forgotten about because that’s how pregnancy works. But no! They were there. Including this kimono and (obviously) these jeans.

See how I tied it all together?

So it’s case closed on the denim files and everyone [me, mostly] wins!

Thursday, October 19, 2017

New England is having a real hard time trying to decide if it wants to continue playing summer or actually initiate fall. Each morning you can either wake up to stuffiness and humidity or frost. It's fun and so good for my sinuses.

I tried a thing here, with the sneakers. I'm not sure I feel okay about it. I've tried to dabble in the athletic sneakers for a casual look before and I just can't seem to get it right. Granted this day involved hauling an 83rd percentile weighted baby up and down our third floor walk-up several times and losing keys and finding keys and doing basement-located laundry. Generally things that are easier done in sneakers (I mean the day would have been near impossible with my normal, non-supportive footwear). But still, as for a 'look' it needs tweaking. Though, hey whatever! I tried a thing! You'll never know if you don't try!

Also, am I supposed to refer to them as 'trainers'? Clearly this is my comfort zone, people.

Monday, October 16, 2017

We tried to plop the child down the other night for some autumny portraits because he was wearing orange and it seems like a thing we should be doing more often. Of course he was far more interested in picking up bits of tree debris and checking out how they tasted. He probably could have cleaned off the entire rug if we let him. The kid loves all food, even when it's really more like "food".

I would like to also officially announce that we survived his first cold! Seven months in ain't too shabby, especially considering all of shopping cart handles we've licked along the way. Of course James and I bore the brunt of it, as Casper apparently has an affinity for sneezing directly into his parents' mouths. He's already so good at sharing.

He's also giving us a major case of the Where's My Baby, Who Is This Tiny Adult?? For within the last 30 days he's begun crawling, babbling like crazy (we're very close to "Dada" much to this "Mama's" chagrin), eating much more solidy-type food (I am crazy good at early childhood development vernacular) and now: standing. Standing in the crib, standing using his larger toys, standing on you, crawling over you to stand on the cat. All of it. I feel like this entire month has been packed with the most development yet and his days as a "baby" are quickly coming to an end. They say to soak in every moment of it and that it all goes by so fast, and this month so far has really driven that point home.

Thursday, October 12, 2017

This is a very large picture of my face, in case you’ve forgotten it and do not have the ability to scroll down and see my face of TWO YEARS ago (also, “you” are probably just my dad, but that’s cool – I’m going to carry on like there’s a general you out there). This was taken as procrastination during our fourth move in four years. That’s some crappy math.

Anyway to play a little catch-up: my hair is different, my life is different. I opened a small restaurant, moved wayyy into the mountains for a year, had a baby, got married, let my roots grow out, moved back toward civilization (if you can call the general NH area “civilization”). Important things not necessarily in that order, but that’s the gist of it. Over the last month I’ve actually had a modicum of free time and have been itching to write words + take pictures of things. I have a feeling this place will skew more toward the lifestyle posts of the ol’ days of blogging yore, but I can’t say I won’t talk a little style here and there. After all, if you don’t get all gussied up for the internet, you don’t get gussied up at all.

I am also sort of sarcastic. I’m not sure if that’s something you remember.

Monday, November 23, 2015

If I ever wind up in a situation where someone has a gun to my head and inexplicably is demanding I choose one print for the rest of my life, I would tell them that the gun is a little much. I mean, duh, it would obviously be leopard print, my one true love. Seriously, please see exhibit A, B, C, D, E (yeah, I dug into the archives for that last one). On a regular basis I actively have to restrain myself from purchasing items in the print and thoroughly plan on aging into my ever-growing collection. I expect by the time I'm in my 70s I'll own nothing but leopard and will be sadly disappointed if I'm known as anything other than 'The Leopard Lady'. #goals

I've begun rotating all of my cold weather favorites back into my wardrobe. I've probably waxed poetic about many of these items before, especially these old boots. I've always told myself if I ever struck it truly rich and could afford to just drop ungodly amounts of money on a pair of boots, I'd replace these with the real deal Chloe version. However, I feel like those couldn't take the beating these trusty boots have over the years. Without even realizing it, I paired them with my go-to field jacket and favorite faux leather leggings. Throw on the tote that carries absolutely everything and a comfy striped shirt and you basically have my cold weather staples in a nutshell. A little texture, some stripes, a jacket to cut the newly present bitter wind and my beater boots. Boom.